


See Me in Shadow

by AVirtoMusae



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Dark, Depression, Inspired by Delain, M/M, Mature because of the depression and things going along with it, Please note first tag for trigger warning because it's bad, major angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 22:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5761957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AVirtoMusae/pseuds/AVirtoMusae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Silence was easier. Quieter. It was lonelier, too, but that was good. Better alone than let anyone else see exactly what inside his brain was like. Emptiness. That was what his mind was like, and he hated it. It took too much to feel. It took something big to make him feel, and he didn’t have the energy to feel things when some damnable emotion did manage to slip through.</p><p>Perhaps if he’d had the time, he’d have realized that he couldn’t feel the emotions through that layer of darkness over him. Perhaps darkness wasn’t quite right. He could see fine. He could look around and see all the shit that made everything feel like shit. The world was stuffy, and he was stuck, breathing thick air and unable to escape.</p><p>Nights were the worst part of it all because he was away from everything. There was no more big brother to yell at him or hit him, no more big brother to tell him outright everyday that he was not good enough and needed to try harder. He was drowning in it, and when he was alone, staring at that dark white ceiling, his eyes couldn’t help but slide over to the window."</p>
            </blockquote>





	See Me in Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: there are suicidal thoughts in here.

  


_Standing in the shadow of our lives  
To hide our imperfections  
Doing anything we can to hide  
Eyes wide open but still blind  
To see what really matters  
And insecurity won't go  
See me in shadows_

_Standing by the ruins of your soul  
That cries for some more meaning  
Wondering when you have  
Become so cold_   


Silence was easier. Quieter. It was lonelier, too, but that was good. Better alone than let anyone else see exactly what inside his brain was like. Emptiness. That was what his mind was like, and he hated it. It took too much to feel. It took something big to make him feel, and he didn’t have the energy to feel things when some damnable emotion did manage to slip through.

Perhaps if he’d had the time, he’d have realized that he couldn’t feel the emotions through that layer of darkness over him. Perhaps darkness wasn’t quite right. He could see fine. He could look around and see all the shit that made everything feel like shit. The world was stuffy, and he was stuck, breathing thick air and unable to escape.

Nights were the worst part of it all because he was away from everything. There was no more big brother to yell at him or hit him, no more big brother to tell him outright everyday that he was not good enough and needed to try harder. He was drowning in it, and when he was alone, staring at that dark white ceiling, his eyes couldn’t help but slide over to the window.

He could run away. He knew the side of the building like he knew the back of his hand. He knew how he would climb down it. He imagined how it would feel on his hands and feet, that adrenaline rush. But where would he go? His friends at school only humored his presence. They’d never actually liked him. He couldn’t bother them with his presence. And if his brothers found out? Well, he cared too much for his friends, however fake they might have been, to let them get charged with kidnapping. He’d never be worth that.

And sometimes, he couldn’t imagine his descent being so coordinated. He’d imagine sitting on that ledge, pushing that window open and just leaning a little too far and falling. The air would help him fall, help him down. The ground would rush up to meet him. And he’d end up in the hospital because his room wasn’t far enough up to do anything. He’d end up with broken bones and his brothers looking down on him some more. He didn’t need to help them do that; they did it well enough on their own.

So his thoughts would always, inevitably, turn from his window to other things. Knives. He could imagine it as it bit into his skin. The trail of red blood it would leave on his wrists. He could never imagine the blade anywhere else, anywhere more discreet, and he knew someone would notice if he just went and cut his wrists. Deeper, and he could just end it, bleed out slowly. That’d be the way to go, he reckoned, the one he feared the least, but somehow, he could never find the way to do it.

He could feel the pull toward his brothers too much, see himself slipping into it because Godsdammit, it was safer. If he was like his brothers, then they couldn’t hate him, couldn’t blame him, couldn’t attack, couldn’t stifle him. It was known. He had to be safe, and so he’d think like them, look to the power because at least then he wasn’t in the line of fire with everyone else. 

And he hated himself more for this. Gods, why was he even still alive? He didn’t deserve it, and his mouth, it stayed even more stubbornly shut. Everyone would hate him if they knew what he was doing, and he didn’t think he could take that. He didn’t want confirmation of everything he already knew.

And then came his eldest brother’s girlfriend. He knew his brother’d never liked her, and he’d known she was just the rebound girl. He was scared of her, like seriously scared of her. He’d sometimes take a shower and imagine that she’d killed his brothers and wanted to kill him. The thought didn’t scare him.

He began to sleep around because it was easier and safer. He’d needed some outlet, and sleeping with people for that one night was a sort of power in its own way, and he knew his brothers would never approve of the fact he was sleeping with men. It sweetened the deal. It did until his sister-in-law (his brother’d done the stupid thing and married the rebound girl) walked in on him and screamed.

And then his brothers had come running, and he was sure the eldest had hit him. He didn’t remember what happened next because he ended up with a bottle of his eldest brother’s wine and gotten too drunk to think and remember. 

He couldn’t believe what had happened, and at the same times, it felt too right to think about. He wanted to curl in on himself, but he couldn’t manage it. He couldn’t think about his own comfort when everyone thought he was diseased for being himself. He didn’t go to any bars or hook up with anyone intentionally after that one. Not for months, not until he could look into a mirror without thinking shattering it with his bare hand would be a good idea.

When he first met the man that would become his boyfriend, he ran away because he didn’t know what to do with it. It was his first hook-up since he’d been outed to his family, and he still felt this disgust at his genitals for what they liked. But he’d gotten some stupid courage from somewhere, or maybe he’d been drunk, and he’d slept with him.

In the morning, a teen-aged boy with blonde curls looked at him with those wide golden eyes and asked him if he wanted to be his boyfriend. When he looked at the kid like he was crazy, it was because he figured the kid had to be.

Who the fuck would want him? he thought to himself. The kid was young and innocent and should have never had a lick to do with him, but there the kid was following him around after that. It made him want to hid where no one could find him, want to find that dark place where he could be broken and no one could see. And yet this kid made him feel like he was wanted in a way that he didn’t know if he could ever understand. 

It almost made him want to be a better person. the kid made him almost not want to hide in the dark anymore, and perhaps for the first time, he felt like maybe, there was a knife ready to cut off his straitjacket. He slowed down his running without meaning to, lost his will to fight, and when the kid, curls bouncing, caught up to him and asked him again, his answer was two words long:

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics and title from "See Me in Shadow" by Delain.
> 
> Reviews and kudos and everything else would be very appreciated.
>
>> A Virto Musae  
> By the Virtue of the Muse


End file.
